


Planting Roots

by bilsunderooks



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 10:11:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18363926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bilsunderooks/pseuds/bilsunderooks
Summary: Percy is a Fae King stuck in the harsh and rainy new world of modern, nineteen sixties Ireland. Antiques smuggler Vex has a score to settle with Dublin’s elite, and Percy was (un)lucky enough to cross her path. This, though, is a tale of new beginnings.





	Planting Roots

**Author's Note:**

> _“Do not get off this horse, and do not let your feet touch ground, or else you will never be able to return to Tír Na nÓg again.”_

Even after eight hundred years of sleep, and the end of Viking rule over Duiblinn, Percy is glad to see that the rain remains a constant tattoo on Irish soil. It is a comfort more warming than electric lights glowing at midnight, than the dwindling national peat supply that burns dark pollution through the city air.

Dublin, even aged into nineteen sixties modernity, welcomes him home with open arms. He could never leave it. 

Still, he has somewhere to be. Under these traffic lights and bustling crowds of the inner city, he cannot possibly let his friend search for him in the cold air. 

The bar he steps into is old. Its walls mottled with age, the stools a range of shapes and sizes. The wood on the bar has several singe marks, tinged with the smell of old, sticky alcohol. Percy has been here often and knows the familiar shape of this place like he has re-learned the streets of modern Dublin, through hard practise. The fireplace is lively, and the men and women nursing pints relaxed and comfortable in armchairs thrown together in clusters. 

Like the rain, no matter the place or time, you can always count on a tavern to remain the same throughout the ages. 

His glasses are a lost cause, water smudged and streaky from his fingers. His jumper is too sodden to be of any use, so he must trust the pub’s heat. That the dark and achingly familiar smell of peat is not just a cheap candle playing tricks on Percy’s tired nerves. 

Even with his limited sight, the woman at the bar that arrests his attention sends his heart thudding in its freshly cracked, ageless cage. 

Vex’s shoulders are tired, short lines that make her smaller than she seems. Her hands cradle a glass, and her hair is a tumble of rain soaked dark matter, finely braided. The blue ribbon she usually ties it together with is absent: she must have come straight from a meeting with her father. 

Vex must sense his arrival, for she turns her head to glance at his reflection in the mirror behind the bar tender. Her chalky, red mouth has faded from the length of the day and her teeth. She assesses him for a long moment, before jerking her slender head down in annoyance. 

He tilts towards her silent command, helpless. He could claim it’s the warmth of the room that draws him in, but really it’s the desire to drape his coat over her wobbly frame. He hasn’t seen her in several days. Maybe that could be an acceptable excuse, if she asked.

A step hasn’t even been taken when the bartender shoots him a filthy glance, pointing at his umbrella with a filthy dishrag that Percy dearly hopes he won’t use on the drying pint glasses next to his left elbow. The time taken to slot the umbrella in the makeshift, grubby stand allows him to regain his composure, smooth his sodden hair away and fix his shirt cuffs. His heart feels too big for his stomach as he makes his way to her.

Vex has already finished half her whiskey. Judging from the high flush on her cheeks and hairline, this isn’t her first glass. Percy can’t help but approve. For all that modernity and Englishness has invaded Dublin and its high society, he can depend on the growing and fading generations that still struggle to populate this island to know what a real measure of whiskey looks like.

He sits on a creaking stool that probably has seen better days yet is no less loved. Vex keeps her face averted still, but that he can work with. 

“I have something for you,” Percy announces as he tucks his left hand into the fold of his coat. 

The ruined hand has scars running like electricity through fine skin, stretched over bone and up to his elbow. A momento from his last battle with Ripley, in the days where electricity wasn’t even imagined in man’s dreams. The injury still aches in the rain; like two broken bones scraping against each other, like an ear infection at three in the morning. Considering the fact that he has only resurfaced into the land of the living, the modern world, two years ago, he hasn’t had plenty of time to get used to the ache. 

“I’m not talking to you,” she says shortly, and he swiftly takes his hand out of his pocket.

He coughs awkwardly, lifts two fingers to catch the bartender’s attention. His usual red ale is placed in front of him seconds later. 

“Where’s Thomas?” he asks, hesitant even after a few gulps. 

Not that he would imagine Vex bringing her son to a pub, but he would never have imagined her choosing to leave him alone with her father holding Dublin’s society circles in the palm of his hand. Or, with Ripley (the woman who like Percy refuses to die) roaming the city’s underbelly and desperately pouring over ancient tomes and garbled poetry for the lost land she and Percy once shared. Percy misses the boy though. With his big dark eyes, mouth so much like his mother’s, and dark hair threaded with braids and blue feathers. He so loves sharing the mirror with his mother in the morning, and see the evidence of their uncanny resemblance in the low light of sunrise. 

“Trinket is with my brother. In Belfast,” she says, as if it costs her to do so. “Thank you for his birthday present, by the way. He loves that stuffed bear more than anything.”

He licks his lips, tastes a layer of cigarette smoke. “It was. I mean. It is, my pleasure.”

She shoots him a quelling look, then turns back to her drink. 

As she sits in her contemplation, he briefly thinks back to meeting her that first night in the street. 

Percy, two months reawoken and too caught up in his thoughts to remember something so disgustingly pedestrian and alien as cars and traffic lights, had walked out of a board meeting with his hopes to rebuild his trade empire dashed because of one Elf-descendant. 

Syldor Vessar, as far as Percy could tell in one meeting, displays all the characteristics of a desperate elf wannabe. His paranoid clutches over his diluted ancestry (and wealth once Percy called in a few favours) have turned him into, as Vex would say, a right wanker. 

They’re all like that, really. Every one of Syldor’s gastly lawyers who work under Vessar&Saundor. Each hand-picked or caught up in the courtroom drama Syldor and his partner rule with an iron fist. The businessmen, the socialites, the ones granted land off the backs of Irish men and their ancestors. The English-blooded, the tight accents, the manners, the general disregard for anyone outside of their clique. Harsh, cold, utterly cowardly, a disgrace to Percy’s family bloodline.

If Percival (the new name like a tight collar choking him whenever he introduces himself in Syldor’s circles) had even a fraction of his old powers still running through him, he would have sent his old hound Orthax to rip their teeth out through their ivory skin, pick their jewels out of his fur, and made necklaces out of their bones to hang by the Bay, in and around ancient Malahide. 

Instead, a whole room of snakes bowed and scraped at his ankles because they were begrudgingly in awe of what he represents, what they could be. 

The diluted Fae generation still recognise a Fae High King when they see one. No matter what name a newly awoken one chooses to present to them. 

Truth be told; Percy never wanted a following. Much less a motley one that didn’t know their lineage as well as they should. 

Percy, at the very core of his self, does not want attention. Especially in this modern age. But by god, he admits to himself, is he a bitter soul if he doesn’t get any. If he wasn’t so desperate for wealth, or, hell, any means to get by in this new world, he would have told the others where to shove their snivelling arrogance.

Percy mourns what his family’s Fae line has become. 

He’d thought this while walking out of a posh hotel, heedless of the flashing lights revealing the rain like sharp and soundless static on a television screen. Suddenly, his coat had been yanked back into the lithe hold of one Vex’ahlia Vessar, daughter of a man Percy loathes after just one meeting. 

She berated him in a dark green peacoat with orange trimmings and exasperated eyes. That’s what struck him the most. Had called him an English idiot, brushed his rain-soaked shoulders, and then asked if he was injured. 

The orange, blue, and red lights had contoured the lines of her face, the perfect curve to her eyes, nose, lips. Her soaked dark hair reminded him of sea nymphs, of summer nights in the glens and climbing alongside peak darkened springs. She was hazy in colours, ephemeral, and yet the most solid thing he’d seen since waking up. 

Her voice, when she said “Darling, let’s get you out of this rain, alright?” reminded him of the honeyed magic vein that ran through Tir Na Nog’s very grounds. 

For Percy, that night started nine months of perfect happiness before everything went to hell.

Before he agreed to help Vex, an illegal book and antiques smuggler as it turns out, earn thousands to support her four year old son and delinquent brother who broke into houses and stole said books and antiques…

Before he became her man to authenticate the sells, and help Vex find and set up point of contacts between buyers, sellers, and unlucky antiques providers - whether they’re rich Irish, Fake Fae, and English alike. Became the shield to her back, protected her brother with his fists and sharp tongue, and bought sweets and teddy bears for her son....

Before they ran afoul of another smuggler by the name of Ms. Ripley, who own antique speciality was in American and Syrian weapons and their transportation to the Irish border. Where Ripley had decided that, if she could not possess Vex’s unique talents and team, then she could destroy them through Vessar&Saundor...

Over the last six months she’d demonstrated how far her reach could demolish Vox Machina in several calculated swoops. She started with blackmailing Percy. Threatened the life of a child. Destroyed Vex’s reputation by revealing the unapologetic father of Thomas to Syldor. Sent Vax to prison for the murder of Saundor that he did not commit. 

Then, orchestrated events that led to tonight, here, in this bar. This night, where Percy has come to say goodbye to Vex one last time before she leaves Ireland, for good. She will take with her her newly escaped brother, and a small child whose birthday party they barely managed to celebrate because of his mother silently crying in her bathroom, or in Percy’s arms, for the past week. 

This small family - the last good, true, thing Ireland has preserved - will vanish just like eight hundred years did to Percy.

Her casual farewell note - a napkin she had roughly scribbled the fated name Vox Machina and her number on the first night they met - is crinkled tightly in his pocket, and he swears that all the whiskey in the world will disappear tonight the minute she walks out that door, and out of his life forever. 

-

“I can still smell your stupid aftershave,” Vex says. 

She quickly downs her drink like she hadn’t meant to say it, and the clink of her glass seems overly loud through the ringing in Percy’s ears. “Catches me off guard sometimes. It’s fucking sense memory, I know. But the moment it fades everything in me aches to chase after it. It’s such an inconvenience, you know that?”

Percy does. She once touched his hand at one of her father’s horrendously stuffy gatherings, and her thumb had rested on his pulse; automatic, possessive, when it was probably meant to be soothing. 

It was a quick gesture in the face of a sneering politician who categorically refused to accept his friend, a Catholic Priest’s, involvement in the smothered whispers of children left alone in Reformatory school classrooms. Vex eventually dragged him away to plot the politician and his long time friend’s downfall in her father’s dark office. She had reached up to fix his tie while they both shook with horror and clung to each other, Percy gripping her elbow tight to keep her fingers on his wrist like an anchor just a little while longer (please please please oh god).

Since that first brush of skin Percy has laid awake at night - imagination drowning under its heavy, phantom weight. When he is in the rain, his wrist hurts from the absence of her mortal claim. 

She turns to him. “We’re leaving. And we’ll never come back. I’m shot of this place, Percy. You know I’ve never fit in and - and with this money coming in, we now have a chance. To be free.”

There is something so painfully earnest in her expression. Resolute, like Percy has come to know her, and yet there’s a vulnerability there that signifies something searching. There’s more to her words here. She hasn’t drawn up the courage to tell him. Which is so bizarrely unlike her Percy’s fingers start twitching ceaselessly. Do they want to push her hair behind her ears? To touch the corner of her mouth? He didn’t know. But he did know that if he didn’t touch her soon, soothe away whatever was making her worry her lip so, he might smash the pub apart. 

He hasn’t told her, he realises suddenly, how he could watch her mouth stretch around her glass as she swallows the last of her drink for the rest of his life.

And God, her eyes. He could drown in those too, catalogue every fleck and the precise shape of them until she takes them away for good. He will see them in every street corner, in flashes of a mirror, the corner of his eye when reading the morning paper. He will burn another hundred years just for their attention again, and wouldn’t find it in himself to care. 

Yearning, Percy has learned since living with mortals in the nineteen sixties, can undo even a God. 

He cleared his throat and wills himself to say to the mirror behind the bar, “I wish you the best of luck, and the happiest of futures.” 

Instead he says: “Please tell me you didn’t take Syldor’s bribe.”

Her face shutters close in the mirror. 

“No,” she says sharply. “A last minute buyer, Strongjaw and Shorthalt lmtd. Remember? They’d heard what happened and vowed us safe passage. To honour three years of good business and patronage. Good men. Nothing like my father. Besides, didn’t you hear? I’ve been disowned. It’s funny that, I have finally caught up to my brother as ‘Most Disappointing Offspring’. Have actually fairly surpassed him if I might say so myself.”

Vex smiles bitterly. This is one competition she did not want to win by a long shot, no matter what she says. 

“I apologise. I didn’t mean the offense, I-” he sighs. “With everything that has happened. I wouldn’t have blamed you as I know it would have been for the sake of Vax and Trinket. I’m profoundly relieved, though, that you have made such friends. That you will have a chance to live beyond the rot in Ireland.”

Her gaze is sharp on his profile. “Why does that sound like you’re not coming?”

He swallows. 

“Because I’m not.” His fingers trace the outline of his glass, watches the white head dissipate slowly. “This is an adventure you’ll face without me, my dear.”

“You’re not serious.” Her voice turns sharper still, and a glance up tells him that there are bright pink spots on her cheeks. “Percy. When I left you that note it was to give you the most discreet heads up possible. I’m not leaving without you. I - we won’t be able to do this without you.”

“Oh, I think you’ll do just fine.” Her eyes flash hot jewels, her chin setting in determination.

“Well, come with me then. Not as my partner, but my friend. Let me steal you away with Trinket, and we can be rid of this fucking backwards country. You’ve said it yourself, Ireland has rot. It has nothing for us anymore, and together? We can build a better life. A safer, less full of bullshit life. Come Percy. Please.” 

He wills himself to turn and face her. He desperately wants to trace his thumb along her cheekbone. “I- I can't, Vex. I just can’t.”

An eyebrow jumps up and the set of her mouth slackens, like he has surprised her. “Can't? Or won't?”

He says nothing, just lets it sit between them like a purpling bruise. 

“Bit of advice,” Vex says, yanking her coat on and standing. Her eyebrows arch as she fixes her cold mouth into a white frown. “If you want something, so badly you can't breathe with it, you take it, and damn the consequences. Has nothing of what I said in these last few months gotten through that thick skull of yours? Honour and duty in this country mean nothing in the face of God. The Church? Those men who run everything? They won’t keep you warm at night with a full stomach and a roof over your head. They’re shams, parlor tricks, a way to keep your head in the sand and pretending that you’re a good person while the world screws you over. Ireland is no place for you anymore, Percy. It’s time to move with the times, get out and find our own way to make a decent living, without all these stupid rules and people like that bitch Ripley trying to destroy us. We can’t keep living in between their rules anymore. So let’s live on our terms.”

He sighs, and tightens his grip of his glass. “Says the woman who cons people of their wealth for a living. Who smuggles, because you can’t stop hiding your true self away from friendships or actual, functioning relationships.”

Vex reels back, smudged lips parted. Then, after a long moment where he refuses to look at her, she packs away the vulnerability sat square in her eyes and takes her powder out with shaky hands. 

He sees the manners bred into her like one of those painfully clear and monochrome photographs. Imagines, with stark clarity, Vex as a young woman flying to and from University in London. Because it was expected of her, because she didn’t know what else to do with her life. Her brother was kept in Scotland and far away from her side. Vex, meanwhile, was trapped in the cramped compressed air of the plane trying to reconstruct Vex Vessar, her father’s proper daughter, with her hair tied up and dress a near perfect impression of Jackie Kennedy. Even though a blind man could see the cracks. Those efforts of becoming the perfect daughter had only lasted until she turned twenty-three: when Vox Machina was still a fledgling idea, and Syldor’s enigmatic partner had expressed an interest in Vex as a personal paralegal for his cases in London.

Percy thinks about their first meeting in the rain far more often than he should. The first and nearly only time he has seen her dishevelled and without a mask. The woman in front of him now is a more full realisation of the woman she must have been trying to pull down when she left the comfortable University halls years before. The untidy braid, the short skirt of her black and white dress, the heavy makeup. A look carefully put together to show the wealth Vex had fought for herself, even if people will assume it came from her father. A stunningly English style that said fuck-you to the tweed clad wives that hung onto Syldor’s men’s arms, as they prattled on about the dangers of television on the collective moral sympathy. 

A Vex that is sharper and intolerant of being put into a box, who makes herself flashy and bold to hide her actions and underhand dealings. Who throws herself into the elite and comes out dripping with their blood if they even so much as say a wrong word about her small son. Her previous personas slipped into cracks made out of anger, made because of a lifetime of being stifled, of being persecuted. First as a woman, then as a mother wracked in societal shame. Time has helped her find it easier and easier to banish the woman she thought her father wanted. Her saving grace came from Trinket smiling brightly at her helped her become someone who loves and longs so fiercely for normality it breaks and renews Percy’s heart.

Percy, who has been unmoored and homeless since he was pulled from Tir Na Nog’s golden hued planes and made into a God, then again into a sleeping Fae, has been helpless under this modern woman’s thrawl - her perfect blend of order and chaos that would have made her a formidable queen. 

Facing the mirror, Vex says, “You don't get to judge Percival. My choices are mine to make and I make them gladly, free of any stupid feelings of honour and duty, of loyalty to others or a place that offers nothing to me. Betrayal is always inevitable, and you know what? I survive. I do fucking well surviving knowing that the bigger fish should be avoided at all costs.”

“This is what you call survival? Constantly flying between countries, allegiances, and homes? Feeling so displaced that you can’t even explain to your son why he has a different bed to sleep in every three or more months? You’re a hypocrite, if you think you can pass judgement on my decision to stay when you’re just as delusional about leaving,” he replies, measured, as he watches her swipe red lipstick in an angry arc on her bottom lip. 

She snaps her powder closed. The pink spots have remained, are turning a mottled red - the only visible mark on her newly perfected face. 

“That’s because your decisions makes you bloody miserable, darling, there’s no delusions about that!” She suddenly grabs his chin which forces his head up. Completely unprepared, he drowns in the fury crackling in her eyes. “Do something for once that makes you happy! Why is that so hard for you to do?”

 _Because everyone dies. Everyone died. And I with them._ He thinks.

“Because that's what's ruling is about!” he snaps back. The bartender hovers in the periphery, and the atmosphere in the pub is darker than peat embers. “This ‘backwards country’ as you so put it? This is my land. Mine. I’m not leaving it for anything because that is what it means to be King. I’m no smuggler. I’m the Fae King of Connacht, Protector of Basalt, Slayer of Invaders. It’s been all fun and games playing smuggler ad thief, but sooner or later responsibility wins out and my rightful duties must take their place. But you wouldn’t understand any of that, would you?”

“No. I don’t. Because that's punishment you’re talking about. Because you still blame yourself for the death of your family and being left behind in the future like some exile! But guess what? You did die. You weren’t left behind. You were reborn, and moved forward. I mean, at least, I thought you had. I really, truly wanted you to. But all I see is that you’re missing everything this world can give you.” Her gaze softens, tone soothing as her hands gently frame his cheeks - like he has so longed for. “You’re not a King anymore Percy. Without your magic, you’re just as futile and trapped as we are. No one can stop Ripley. No one can take back your Ireland for you. So, it’s about time you stopped having this silly tantrum and overblown fantasy ideas, and _live_. _Now_ and here.” 

“With you?” he says. With that, it is like the fire in her burns out. “In another land alien to me? Where I am stripped of all my powers, of all that makes me King? With no skills, money, qualifications, or anything to help your family set up as you deserve. Is that what you’re suggesting?” he says, and realises his fingers are tracing her elbows, helpless. 

“Is that so hard to imagine?” she says shakily, and if he lifted his head, just so, his answer would be buried in her lips. 

“Did any of this mean anything to you?” she then asks him, like a second punch. Head cocked to the side even as her eyes narrow, like she is genuinely curious but can’t help the shrewd calculation that accompanies it. No doubt a habit, if poorly hidden, that she picked up from her father and all the other men in Vessar&Saundor she hates. 

Percy hands flutter self-consciously away from her waist, and he clears his throat. Prepares himself for the best performance of his long, long life. “Not enough to leave. My business here is not done.” 

Vex however is proving to be an astute woman who refuses to be fooled. When she kisses him, it is deliberately on the corner of his mouth, a hard press that bookends the desire to fight he still senses in her. That shouldn’t hurt, but it does. Twists his insides into knots, and slides an iron knife up into his diaphragm and ribs.

Her lipstick is perfect as she picks up her handbag. “I must go. The flight leaves in two hours, and I have no intention on wasting time arguing with a stubborn old man.” 

“Will you ever write to me?” he says while keeping his gaze fixed on the cardboard battlefield his hands have started to make of the coasters. 

Vex clears her throat. “Depends on how busy I am,” she says, a touch wetly. “I’ll make sure - I’m sure Trinket would love to send you letters though.”

“That’s perfect. I would love that. Anything.” His quiet reply sits unhappily between them.

“Well. See you around, Percy,” she says, loftily, as she brushes her coat down. Then she leaves abruptly without hearing his reply. 

Probably for the best, Percy thinks as his shaking hands pick up his glass, and he downs the rest of his drink, the whiskey splashing his shirt.

-

Half an hour, and a quarter of Percy’s third pint, later and Vex is back in her seat with a pinched mouth and white eyes.

“Back so soon? I thought you had a flight to catch,” he teases without any heart to it.

“Riley has been arrested,” she says, instead of acknowledging him. “Arrested for smuggling, blackmail, murder, and embezzling half the companies in Dublin who are covered by Vessar&Saundor. The news - the newspapers say she’ll be hanged should the trail go against her favour. But you knew all that. Didn't you?”

He tipped his glass towards her, sends her a self-deprecating smile as his left hand pushes a new, half melted whiskey towards her. 

She takes it but doesn't drink, too busy studying his face while shock has broken her face wide open.

“I had to do something,” he tells her around the lump in his throat, so profoundly grateful she came back his stomach is hollow with it. “This is my home.”

Bewildered, she shakes her head. “What was the point of all that self-righteous bullcrap then? Were you trying to mock me? Push me away? Be the right royal dick my brother has always accused you of?”

He considers his scarred hands for a moment, and what it would feel like to have her ring covered hands in them for just a moment. 

“None of those reasons. Maybe, a little of all of them?” he shrugs. “Or, maybe I just wanted someone to argue with me. Make sure that what I have decided is the right thing.”

“Which is?”

He turns to her, angles his whole body to face her fully for the first time since he stepped in the bar, sees her defeated, rain soaked shoulders, still surprised mouth, and burning hope in her eyes. Percy is suddenly transported to that first night, and he falls in love all over again.

He takes a shaky breath and says, “Stay with me. Don’t go to America. At least, not for another few years. Stay. Make Ireland your home again, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy.”

She blinks, even as her eyes track his clumsy hands setting a ring box on the bar counter like a hawk. “Percy, what-”

“Marry me, Vex'ahlia. Be my companion in this modern world, and I will never let you hunger. I will love and protect your son as my own blood, should he choose to accept me. You cannot possess me for I belong to myself - yet while we both wish it, I give you that which is mine to give. Marry me, so that I can spend the rest of my life with you.”

She is momentarily speechless for the first time since meeting her. 

“But. But you’d be mortal,” she says, because her diluted Fae blood means she has always known who Percy was, down to her marrow. 

He opens his hand. Looks at the age lines, the scar running criss cross along the flesh. His ring is tricky to pull off at first, but when he eases it over the thickest knuckle, it slides away like a silk scarf. The silver hits the bar top with a dull thud.

He then lifts the engagement ring box and shakes it a little - a silent question because, for once, he is too scared to open his mouth.

He breathes out a sigh of relief when, after several long minutes, Vex nods, a grin breaking over her face. 

He finally smiles, lets it break over him and fill him up with happiness. Takes her hand. “Yes. I'm rather sick of living forever. I've never been more sure.” 

“Remember what I said about you making decisions that make you miserable?” she laughs, like she can hardly believe it. 

He kisses her knuckles, feels the cold imprint of the ring on his lips. “Not this time. Definitely not.”

“Ireland? Mortal? Saddled to a woman who has a son out of wedlock, a criminal record she shares with her brother, and a prick for a father. You’re absolutely sure, Percy?”

“I don't know where I would be without you,” he admits, more to himself than her. And when had that changed? Over the last few months? Late nights poring over her private antiques catalogue? Or here, tonight, in this bar where she argued for his immortal heart - and won.

The ring, the one his father gave him for his twelfth birthday, has grown little golden feet and taken root in the bar top. It grows quickly into a small tree the height of his shoulder, little apple blossoms popping from spreading branches. Tiny leaves already litter the base, spilling onto the bar top and between the ruined coasters. 

He looks up at her, doesn’t know what his face looks like but her eyes, her very posture, melt that much further into his space. He finally allows himself to cling onto her. Vex’s lips are as soft as he’s always imagined them to be. Smooth, gentle, but with a hard edge of teeth. He finally lets himself wrap his arms around her waist, presses her to him, and smells jasmine as she deepens the kiss. 

Percy rests his forehead against her, while his fingers ball into the back of her peacoat.

“Tell me again. Please. Tell me it all again.” 

“What?” she breathes as she wraps her arms over his shoulders.

“What you said to me in your apartment - the day we became partners.”

Her teeth latched onto his earlobe before he could draw in a surprised breath. His body feels like a live wire, like a crackle of electricity in the glens, and he arches into her as she whispers fiercely into his ear. “Fuck the lot of them, Darling. You can have anything you want in this world. Let me show you.” Then, heedless of the lipstick she is no doubt smearing along his hairline, her hands find the buttons of his jacket and pulls him off the stool. 

As he is dragged to the door, he glimpses himself in the mirror. His eyes are bright, and the smile on his face looks unpractised, crooked, wild with a joy he only ever sees in other people. He looks younger, is split open with youth, even as he notes faint crows feet around his eyes. The first touch of ageing that couldn’t have appeared in the last few minutes. 

And then he is outside, and Vex is turning into his frame, shielding him from a splash of street water as a car speeds by, and his hands grip her hips to steady her, their bodies rocking in time to the music that the pub doors snap close. 

There is a cut on her lip from cracked skin, already healing. It captures him almost as much as her breathless smile does, and when he lurches forward to kiss her again he can taste age like a sunset that will take decades to burn instead of millenia. It fizzles, like the street lamps overhead, and it feels as relieving as the rain dying down overhead. Percy doesn’t want to be anywhere else except buried in her laugh - held in her hands like the fingers are a camera; shuttering closed to capture their future forever. 

fin.


End file.
